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Topic: So it begins..... (Read 31645 times)

The cold weather got here way to fast and I had to put the pedal to the metal to get this oven ready before winter. Sadly that means I've done a ton of work since my last update and don't have much to show along the way. Luckily none of it is rocket science and I will glady answer questions and walk anyone through the process if need be, just ask. Here is the oven as it sits today with the stucco finished. I'll begin curing fires tomorrow. This is basically how she will stay until the spring when I will tile her up nice and fancy. I'm thrilled with the result and hope she cooks half as good as I think she looks!

PS: For anybody curious I rolled the oven out of the garage and onto the patio today by myself. With quality casters made for the weight it is not an issue at all once the wheels are aligned. The trick to getting the wheels align is to simply use a lever, like a 4 x 4, to point the oven where you want to go. Once that is done it rolls so easy my mother could do it.

Amazing job, can't wait to see it in action and the finished tiling. How are you going to have the landing site in front? Are you going to have marble in front or are you going to do it like the neapolitan ovens with the metal plate in the middle and marble on the sides?

Thanks a lot for the compliments guys, I'm just thrilled with it. The first curing fire is going now and it runs like it is turbo charged compared to my old oven, not sure if it is the bigger door or the vent, but something is causing it. Considering the oven is still wet and I've yet to put the stack on which will increase the draw this is just awesome because it will only get better.

I'm not really sure about the landing at this point. Personally I only had a very small landing on the old oven and it only got used once a year while baking a turkey. To be honest I've always seen them as something that puts me further away from the back of the oven. Unlike traditional Neapolitan ovens mine is fully insulated in the front, so I'm already 6 inches back as it is. That said my wife would like one for the turkey, and if I do decided to add one it will be similar to the traditional ones, I'll weld a angle iron frame to the oven stand and probably build it all out of stainless. It will not be "heat conducting" like a traditional Neapolitan oven though, as my oven is insulated from the stand.

Here is a video demonstrating the oven vent. Hopefully it is the first of many videos to come.

On a side note, I'm loving the oven on wheels and the offset stack right now. It rained cats and dogs last night, and I had plans to fire the oven. I opened the garage door and rolled the oven so the front was sticking into the garage and the stack was out in the open. I was a happy dry pizza cooking fool.

I was firing the oven tonight and thought it was really displaying the convection patter well so I took a video. I must have bumped the button to stop recording so I only ended up with a few seconds of what was supposed to be about 30, but it still shows what I was seeing well. The fire is rolling across the dome and then a veil of smoke is hovering above the floor as it circulates back toward the front and out the vent.

I'm new to the forum and I'm having a patio built in the next few months and I want a pizza oven to go with it. I had been debating what to buy but thanks to super helpful threads like yours, I'm now debating what to build. Your oven looks awesome. Other ovens "build your own" ovens had put me off with the amount of brick cutting and fitting but your design seems much easier. Anway, a couple questions:

Do you think your cast refractory entrance could have been cast without the bottom edge? Like just the arch? I think it would be much easier to build the mold that way but I'm wondering if you see a reason for the bottom. Then I'd use brick to fill in the landing

Is there a performance reason to route the exhaust up to the top of the dome? Or is that just an aesthetic preference over going straight up?

I don't see any issues casting the entry without the bottom section, but can say that is far from the hardest part of the mould. Laying out the arch onto the radius takes so knowledge of layout, as does making the conical section where the entry intersects the dome. Your way the mould would be easier to fill, although I have learned a lot about mould making since then and would probably use weep holes now to ensure a full fill in the bottom section.

I have talked about it a lot, but not sure it has came up in this thread. I do not currently advise people to use the Neapolitan vent in backyard ovens. For commercial ovens it may very well have it's place, but in a backyard it is just extra complication with little gain. I do however still feel strongly about keeping the oven accessible and the entry to a minimum depth. You will see some ovens with entry's the size of a small house. That is the last thing you want for neapolitan pizza.

I agree. If the oven is continuously fired, do the Neapolitan vent if you want. For occasional use it is not adding anything to the equation but is probably moving heat out of the dome brick far faster than it is adding to it.

Jeff, there is a bunch of great posts and information on building your Neapolitan style oven.

Now it has been a few years since you built it and used it, is there any things you might change or advice to give etc?Obviously there is plenty through the thread. Also did you total up the cost of raw materials to make this one?I thought I would save up but now seeing your attempt it seems totally manageable.

The few changes I would make have been pretty well documented by me around the site, but to sum it up.

1. Use at least a small layer of compressible insulation to allow for expansion. This oven tore the stucco apart pretty fast and had to be totally redone all the way down to the insulation

2. The neapolitan vent is great for aesthetics, but adds nothing to the equation in a home environment and in fact may detract

3. A 42" oven with 4.5" of thermal mass is a bear to fire. In my opinion way too much for a home oven if you are a Neapolitan enthusiast who wants to fire to 900F+ on the floor. For a standard wood burning oven I would go to a 36" but more importantly it would be cast and only 2 inches of thermal mass. I still don't think thats the ideal....

This oven hasn't gotten the use of my first oven(30" low mass) because it was just too much to fire during the week after work. Now I have a new oven of my own design, and it is producing such promising results that I'm not sure what the future holds for this oven, it may very well be up for sale in the near future. The new oven is coal burning and designed for a 700-750 degree 3-4 minute bake, but I anticipated with the live flame of wood I could easily get it to Neapolitan temperatures. Long story short I've had the oven all the way up to 1200F, and soon will do my first Neapolitan bake in it which I have little doubt will be a success. It fires easily in under and hour even with mildly wet wood, and sips fuel.

I noticed you did not use an insulating roll so thats great to know.My questions and wonderings about the squirrel style flue seems answered, that is not totally necessary.I have a cast 47" base 2" thick and was wondering if I should leave it as is or put brick on top as the final surface or not.I am going to use the oven in my shop to make pizza 3 evenings a week and roast cacao the next morning from left over heat.

Sorry again, lol. I should have clarified that when I say three centered arch, I mean it to describe an arch with the 3 centers as described in that diagram. This seems to be the classic and standard 3 centered arch in masonry, and when the term is used this is what it is understood to mean. When laid out as described this type of three centered arch will be dependent only on the base width and the resulting height will be very near d/3.4 .

Hello,I am planning on a 35.4" (90cm) neapolitan oven build and are wondering about these dimensions:

1. Internal hight. What would be the internal hight? I would like to have it around 14.17" (36cm). Or stick with the d/3.4 rule? Seems kind of low to me.2. Oven opening hight. So following the 63% rule and sticking with the 14.17" (36cm) internal hight it would be 8.92" (22,7cm).3. Oven opening width. Something between 13.78" (35cm) and 15.75" (40cm). Edited June 26, 2014 I just realised since the oven opening hight is 8.92" (22,7cm) the width should be 17.87" (45,4cm).